I believe that when it comes to integrity, Christians on the internet should be above reproach and demonstrate truth and grace in everything that we do.
When I started blogging I couldn’t even spell ‘etiquette’ much less practice it on my new blog but I did try to learn the best procedures by observing the best. Along the way I naturally picked up some important do’s and don’ts—a lot by just experiencing stuff that I didn’t like others doing to me.
A lot of Christian bloggers first started using the internet to find stories and issues that they want to share with friends and relatives via email. I still have several who are close to me that browse the net and send me stuff that they found. Sometimes they just copy an entire story and send it on—other times just a link, a video, or a cartoon.
Later, some friends have transitioned from email to social media or even blogging with little change in what they do. If it is maintained in social media just among friends a lot of what goes on is forgivable.
The problem comes when folks start blogging and their new sites are all of a sudden beamed to the entire world potentially. In reality only their close friends and relatives are reading the stuff but others do eventually come aboard once the blog is indexed by Google and it all takes on a more permanent ‘life of its own’. A case in point–I have one personal blog that has been visited by folks from over 182 different countries in the last 4 years–many I didn’t know even existed!
Here’s some basic ‘golden rules’ to consider:
1. Linking Sources
Always provide proper links to sources that you refer to or use in preparing your posts. That way your readers can check out the story and documentation for themselves. Also, the sources should receive credit and linking makes that possible.
Note: It is always best to use permalinks to the actual post or story rather than just referring or linking to the home page or blog.
2. Linking Rather than Just Copying
It is a violation of both blogging etiquette and copyright rules to copy an entire article and post it without permission, even if you do link to the original source. ‘Fair Use’ allows for quotes. If you think the whole article is important and you want folks to read it than provide an anchor text or quote from the article with a link to the rest.
If you post the whole article than your readers have no reason to visit the original site and that is completely unfair to the original author.
3. Commenting
This is the bread and butter of blogging but with all of the spam out there it is beginning to become a problem for every blogger and website administrator. It is getting harder to differentiate between spam and actual comments sometimes. Some spammers used to leave trite comments like: “nice blog”, “great article”, “beautiful site” and etc. Now they seem to be leaving more extensive comments like: “I’m going to read your blog from now on”, “You have some great information here that I can use”, “You have really added to the conversation on this subject” and etc.
As a blogger making comments on other blogs you should always be relevant to the discussion and add to the conversation. Some no-no’s: Leaving trite comments that don’t really add to the conversation. Leaving insulting personal comments. Worse–posting an entire pre-written article of your own on the same subject in the comment section. Less worse– linking to one of your own without permission. A grey area– Linking to a relevant post of your own or on another blog. If you are a regular commenter on that blog it is probably less of a problem.
As a blogger moderating the comments on your own blog; is it mandatory to post all comments the way they are? Generally yes, they are really the property of the writer and not the blog. However, in the past I have personally deleted some inappropriate words on a couple of occasions with an inserted note: (expletive deleted) and self-serving links that were not helpful to the discussion.
It is a good idea to have a commenting policy in place with your expectations clearly identified.
4. Pictures and Images
Another area that new bloggers in particular have difficulty with is in using and borrowing pictures and images. Pictures and images are also protected by copyright laws and not always available for free use without permission. It really isn’t right just to grab a picture or a graphic off of another site and paste to your own. Care should be taken to insure that it is in public domain and available for general use.
Also care should be taken to down load any images to make sure you are not ‘hot-linking’. Every image and picture on the internet has its own link and if you just copy and paste and leave the link intact then you are actually stealing someone else’s hosted bandwidth.
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